Every few months a new AI tool lands that does 90% of what I already have, with a better landing page and a free tier that expires in fourteen days. The old move was to sign up for three of them, let the trial clocks run, and quietly abandon two by month's end; each one still sitting on my card or my calendar.
I've started doing the comparison step before the signup instead of after. A friend pointed me at AIMarketly for this: it lists AI tools side by side with features, pricing, ratings, and use case in one place, so the "which one do I actually need" question gets answered before any account exists.
What comparing first looks like in practice
Last month I needed a React performance pass on a project, not to build it, just to audit it. Instead of Googling "react best practices 2026" and reading four blog posts from people selling courses, I looked at the skill catalog: vercel-react-best-practices, described as 70 rules prioritized by impact across React and Next.js. One entry, one description, install count visible. I read the SKILL.md, ran it against a test project, and it flagged three real issues in an afternoon that I would have found eventually by hand.
That's the difference between a directory and a comparison table: the first tells you what exists; the second tells you which of them is worth your time. For tools with pricing tiers, where "free" usually means "until we decide it doesn't", seeing the price next to the feature list before you commit saves the awkward email to support later.
Why I stopped trusting my own shortlist
My instinct when a tool looks good is to assume it's the best one, because I found it first. That's not research, that's confirmation bias with a checkout page. Side-by-side comparison breaks that: once you see four tools doing the same job at $0, $19, and $49/month, the "I already liked this one" feeling loses most of its force.
The catalog is free to browse (11k+ skills across 34 categories, human-reviewed weekly), so the cost of checking before buying is zero: https://www.aimarketly.com
The honest caveats
Ratings on a young site are thin; an entry with twelve ratings isn't telling you much either way, and I treat low-rating counts as "unknown," not "bad." And curated means lagged: the newest tool sometimes shows up weeks after launch. For anything time-sensitive I still check the vendor's own page; for everything else, comparing first has saved me at least two abandoned trials this quarter.
FAQ
Is it only skills, or actual tools with pricing?
Both. The skill catalog is the largest section, but tools and agents are listed too, with features, pricing, and ratings you can compare directly.
How current is the data?
Updated weekly and human-reviewed. Good enough for "which tool should I try," not for "what shipped this morning"; for that, check the source.
Do I need an account to compare?
No. Browse and compare without signing up; it's free.
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